Remember the story of the Hong Kong billionaire, who offered $65m to any man who could win
the heart of his lesbian daughter? If you missed it Click Here Gigi Chao, the
daughter of a Hong Kong billionaire says she has been bombarded with marriage
proposals – and even nude photographs – from Nigerians and other nationals
after her father offered £40 million to the man who could woo her.
Gigi Chao, daughter of property tycoon Cecil Chao,
entered a civil partnership with her girlfriend of seven years in a ceremony in
Paris five months ago. But Mr Chao, 76, has told the South China Morning Post
that reports of his daughter’s civil ceremony were “false”. He announced the
HK$500 million dowry earlier this week.
It has sparked a deluge of offers. Speaking on Thursday
Ms Chao, 33, said she had received about 200 proposals and that the number of
people following her on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook had jumped by 1,500 since
her father’s announcement.
“People are contacting me on Facebook, by email, on
Twitter. It’s ridiculous. I can’t sort out the serious proposals from the
half-hearted ones. I can’t make head or tail of it,” she told The Daily
Telegraph.
Ms Chao, an executive director of her father’s company,
Cheuk Nang, said that in addition to receiving enquiries from gentlemen who say
they are looking for love and ask her out on a date, she has received some
introductions that are less conventional. Some hopefuls have attached nude
photos of themselves or provided information about their financial situations.
She has received proposals from all over the world, including Nigeria, India,
Turkey and Bulgaria. Numerous bankers have contacted her.
“Some of them had obviously done their research, you
know, gone on my Facebook and looked at my background,” she said. “Some of them
are quite poetic.”
But far from getting angry at her father, she said she
was “touched”.
“At first I was entertained by it, and then that
entertainment turned into the realisation and conviction that I am a really
lucky girl to have such a loving daddy, because it’s really sweet of him to do
something like this as an expression of his fatherly love,” she said. While Ms
Chao knew that her father would go public denying the union, she did not know
he would offer the reward. “I think the HK$500 million really came as an
afterthought.”
Even though Mr Chao has not accepted the union, Ms Chao
said she loved her father and that they had a good relationship. “It’s not that
he can’t accept me,” she said. “It’s that he can’t accept how society would
view me and the status that it would incur. Marriage is still a form of social
status. I do understand him. I understand why he’s doing this.”
She added: “But I don’t appreciate getting 1,500 emails.”
Ms Chao, who also runs Haut Monde Talent, a model
management and PR firm, met her partner, Sean Yeung, who also goes by Sean Eav,
while they were working together. Ms Chao she was drawn to Ms Yeung because she
was straightforward, not manipulative, honest, had strong family values and
cared about her friends deeply. “I’m very happy when I’m with her,” she said. Ms
Chao, who has dated men and women, said she has always been open and honest
about her relationships to her family.
However her mother has not accepted her sexuality. Ms
Chao recalled that when she told her mother about a relationship with a girl
when she was 16 years old, her mother “banged her head against the wall,
literally”.
Although they have become more visible in recent years,
members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Hong Kong
are still largely not accepted by the vast majority of the population. Ms Chao
believes gay rights are picking up, but said work was still needed on the
social mentality. Mr Chao is not so conventional himself. He made headlines in
2003 when his Rolls-Royce caught fire while he and his girlfriend were inside.
The tycoon has never married and once claimed to have had
“intimate relations” with about 10,000 women.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
We Love To Hear What You think About The Post Or Blog.